


To My Liege

by greygerbil



Category: Original Work
Genre: Chronic Pain, First Kiss, Letters, M/M, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:33:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23820115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Sir Sekhemkare wishes he would be back at court instead of exchanging letters with King Waleran, especially since his old friend seems different these days.
Relationships: King/His Favourite Male Knight, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 77
Collections: Unsent Letters 2020





	To My Liege

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roguefaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguefaerie/gifts).



To Sir Sekhemkare,

I was happy to hear from you again. The distance being what it is, letters travel too slowly. Of course, my brother always used to call me impatient, so perhaps it is just the way I perceive time. Most letters on my desk are not as pleasant to answer, so I always find myself waiting for yours.

I hope that the court of Queen Neithotep is still to your liking. I have always considered her an important ally to our kingdom and I know you have, at times, missed your homeland, and above all, you are the most trusted man at my court. This should answer your question why I sent you, though you have asked and I have answered often enough. Of course I would have need of you here, yes, but ensuring that Queen Neithotep remains friendly to us was ultimately the most important thing. We cannot fight another war so soon.

You know, I still remember how shy you were when your mother moved across the sea and brought you to our court. You would barely come out behind her skirts. I don’t say this to tease you, it’s merely the earliest image I have of you. Being a little younger than you, my memories of that time are fractured and faint. I still know that your stories of your home were always like fairytales to me, who came from such a cold, grey place. When you accompanied me on my travels as a youth, I much relished seeing them with you. How far away that time seems now for both of us, old friend! My beard is already flecked with grey even though I won’t see my fortieth summer until next year. I do wish I could have come with you again. Had things gone differently in the war, we may have travelled to Queen Neithotep’s court together.

But no wonder I feel like an old man, reminiscing like that. I write late at night, so forgive my loose hand. You asked what became of Lord Edward Worthington’s claim on his sister’s lands. I dismissed them, though it took me some manoeuvring to not have a revolt on my hands. Mind you, Lord Edward Worthington is not as well-liked as he thinks he is, so I doubt he would have been successful, but the last thing I want is bloodshed among my subjects. The fact remains that his sister is the older one and though she has been dejected since her husband died in the war, I can see no evidence of Lord Edward’s claim that grief has driven her mad. Yes, she has been in mourning for near three years now, but she manages her lands, her heir seems like a bright young woman getting all opportunities for education, and beyond that I have no reason to meddle in Lady Jane’s private affairs. Of course, we always guessed that his accusations were spurious.

As to the matter of the repairs on the westwards wall, they go as slow as ever, but steady nonetheless. You were right to remind me in your last letter that it took the ancients a hundred years to build the thing, so even with the best masons on the job, we cannot hope to put it back together in a few seasons. That’s my impatience again! But I also fear for the young hopefuls that I station there as guards, knights who are in truth squires that have been pushed onwards too fast. I pray to the creators it works as well as it did for us. We were on the battlefield before our time, too, and it steeled us, but I remember over how many bodies of our fellow squires we stepped. If I can keep this country at peace, these young knights may have a chance to grow up.

The princess is well and attending her lessons. Today, she even sat in the throne room with me for the afternoon audiences and managed not to fidget even though they went on for a couple of hours. Yesterday, she went with me to put a flower on the graves of her parents. Speaking of the fading memory of young children, I don’t think Margritte really remembers either of them. I admit it is strange to consider when I miss them so dearly. On the other hand, perhaps it is a mercy that her young mind has not been marred by such loss, if her life should not escape it. She will feel it enough once she grows up. She has asked me to give you her best regards and she wants to know if there are cats where you live at the moment? She is still taking good care of that ginger stray you took in from the castle kitchens. She tells me that she is certain he misses you, too, so I think I will give you his regards as well!

I will hand this letter to a rider before I go to bed. May their dragon be swift and find you well, and may you continue in good health and good spirits.

 _King Waleran of House Blakewood_  
First of his Name, Eleventh of his Bloodline to Hold the Throne of Andar, Shield and Sword of the Realm

-

To my liege,

I was glad to see you wrote back so quickly. Sure, Queen Neithotep and her court are as pleasant as I remember it from our travels long ago and I can’t say I’ve lacked for good company. The queen herself is still sharp as a knife and has been gracious enough to keep me in her entourage, so these things have not changed from my earlier letters. I find you should be apprenticed to her: you are too nice and understanding when people bring absolute nonsense before you. The way she cuts egotistical and insolent retainers down with her words to keep them from loitering on her doorstep is very gratifying. Still, I have lived in Andar since I was as young as the princess is now. Besides, I don’t like to be separated from you. It doesn’t seem right for the captain of the king’s guard to be eating honeyed figs and lounging in the sun while the king faces down malcontents like Edward Worthington alone.

As you can tell from this, and as I already said before, my mission is drawing to a close. Any sensible legate could easily hold my position here. Queen Neithotep has no reason to ally with the raider tribes of the west and she knows even in our weakened state, we’re everything but easy prey for an invader. Tell me when I can go home and I will be on the back of a dragon at once.

Since I have little else to do, I spend a lot of my time here riding. Her majesty’s city of residence, Tamiet, has only grown more perplexingly gigantic and marvellous since we last visited and I even made an excursion to Par-Wedjet, my mother’s home. Do you remember that when we travelled here, I took you to an old smithy, where she learned the craft she worked at your queen mother’s court? It has been torn down for a stable now. I expected to be disappointed, but it has been decades and really, I find I’d rather see life go on in this village than have it abandoned and preserved for my memory. I’d like it if you were here. The sun is good for old wounds and the fragility that comes with them. After that bout of sickness you had last winter I am especially loathe to be away when autumn comes ever closer. The creators almost took you in those long nights. I curse the Warrior-King Halvar for that ambush he laid. I know you had little choice in how you killed him, all but holding your guts as you were and with your shattered leg, but I wish he’d suffered more. I should have been there. Perhaps your brother and his wife would still be alive if you’d had another soldier at your side, or you might still be walking without a cane. It’s pointless to dwell on that, though, I know, and you’ll just tell me again that it wasn’t my fault.

Enough of that. I’m happy to know Margritte is doing well and taking care of Tangerine. There are cats here, people like them a lot, but none are like that little savage. I hope he isn’t picking fights with the hunting dogs. Still, I have to wonder about your last letter. It’s like you have forgotten that now that you have taken the throne, your issue will be heir to it, not Margritte. When you take her into audiences, you make her expect to grow into a queen. For the sake of your future children, don’t invite such bitterness from a relative. You know I basically think of Margritte as my own niece, despite us sharing no blood, but we don’t need civil war. This isn’t the best for her, either.

May the creators preserve you.

 _Sir Sekhemkare of House Steele_  
The King’s First Blade, Knight of the Realm

-

To Sir Sekhemkare,

Thank you for writing back so promptly. Your letters always raise my spirits and I am happy to know that life is treating you well at Queen Neithotep’s court and that you had occasion to revisit your home. I still remember it so clearly that I struggle to believe it has been twenty years since we went. That little village nestled against the very edge of the desert by the side of a small lake, overgrown with palm trees, with the giant tombs of the queen’s forbearers standing in the distance where the dunes stretched to the horizon – it was a breathtaking sight. No wonder such a singular place produced extraordinary people like you and your mother.

Your praise for Queen Neithotep does not surprise me. She has always been shrewd. My brother struggled to trust her for it, but for my part I don’t think that she seriously plans to put a knife in our back, especially not after your reports over the last months. Cunning people may not necessarily be bad people! As someone who hopes to be worthy to be judged by history to have done more healing than harm, in the end, I would rather have them on our side. Anyway, if your appointed presence at her court comes with amenities, why should you not profit? I see no dishonour in your indulgence and reprieve from duty that I often couldn’t grant you, especially not since I became king. I would like for you to be able to enjoy them for a long time yet.

As for your concerns for my health, I thank you, but you should know things are not so dire, anyway. After all, my faithless physician always tells you when he thinks I don’t listen to him, since he knows you will push me until I give in. I should have him for treason, telling the king’s secrets, but I admit it is a good strategy and one should not remove smart people from service. You would have a letter from him where I truly at the edge of another breakdown.

You would be right to scold me for how I raise Margritte if I planned to marry. However, in the weeks of that sickness in which you watched over me, I had much time to think and I have decided that I will honour my brother’s and goodsister’s legacy and not take a wife. Due to their death, Margritte has been my ward since she was almost a babe, anyway, not even two summers old. She will be the queen and that’s how she shall be raised. I know that if I finally set down such clear lines, you will not disagree with my decision. I should have done it earlier.

I must return to other matters now, though when I write to you I could go on and on and produce so many pages you would eventually be tempted to feed them to your hearth flames unread. Farewell and may the creators watch over you.

 _King Waleran of House Blakewood_  
First of his Name, Eleventh of his Bloodline to Hold the Throne of Andar, Shield and Sword of the Realm

-

To my liege,

Your last letter concerns me. Yes, I agree that if you won’t have any legitimate heirs of your own, then it is right to raise Margritte to be the queen. You’ll know I like this decision, as I’m partial to the girl. But in light of what you write to me and what the king’s guards report, it worries me to have one more piece of evidence that you have turned away from people since I have left, now even rejecting marriage. My men and women write to me that you spend all your time working and that aside from the necessary appearances to the public, you are not often seen outside your study anymore. I commend your diligence, but the man I remember would play dice with the guards, sit in the kitchens to talk with the servants, and join in every festivity. I know that you deal with the pain of the injuries and likely will forever, barring a miracle, but even after Halvar’s attack you were no different in these respects. Working every hour of the day cannot be healthy for a man who needs more respite than others due to his old wounds, can it? And now, on top of that, it feels like you are all but telling me to keep away from your court.

I don’t understand what I have done that you ask this of me. You can’t be on the battlefield with me anymore, but that doesn’t mean we must split ranks. When they offered you to become a knight early by virtue of your blood, you refused to take the honour until I was ready to become a knight as well. We were both too young, maybe, but at least we were together. When we held our vigil before the creators, I knew that night that we spent in the temple that we wouldn’t ever part, even if one or both of us could not hold a sword anymore. Was that not true?

My letter is brief. I make one request: Let me return.

 _Sir Sekhemkare of House Steele_  
The King’s First Blade, Knight of the Realm

-

To Sir Sekhemkare,

It is both a blessing and a curse to have a friend who knows you so well they can sense your unease even when they are not by your side. In return, let me be as frank as I can in this letter. You deserve to know my real thoughts, my old friend.

Yes, I do want you to stay at the court of Queen Neithotep. You are my best knight and of course my favourite, since we have been fighting side by side from when we were children. Your service to me and my family has always been exemplary. Loyalty like yours is not easily come by. When I ascended to the throne, you bore my new responsibilities alongside me and have for three years. If the world dispensed such titles by merit, you’d be king as well. Yet, seeing you work so hard for my sake has opened my eyes. Even when I was only the queen’s younger son or the king’s brother, was I not still above you in rank, as you were only the court smith’s heir? I have tried to be fair to you, but I’m sure you’ve felt the difference in our status over the years and while I never thought of you as anything but my equal, I failed to see the ways in which this was not true and what repercussions this disparity had for you. Of course, in my heart you will never be lower than me, but unlike me, you cannot so easily pretend that the world also believes this.

I may have been a happier man before, but happy people are often careless. Those nights you wasted at my bedside last winter made me wonder how much of a burden I have been in your life. Don’t mistake me – I do not say you are not truly my friend. I know you are. Will that not only make it more difficult for you to go your own way when perhaps you should? I have made use of your generous help for far too long.

I do not plan to remove you from my court, either, of course. You are welcome to visit whenever you please and for how long you choose to. But I think you deserve to have a position that will give you both prestige and lessen your duties to me. I knew had I told you in these words, you would never have even left, though. I wanted you to see the advantages with your own eyes before you rejected the offer.

As for the changes in my personality the king’s guard has mentioned to you, it is not the pain that keeps me at the desk; you guess right that it is not the most comfortable place to be. Yet it feels to me now like all I do is waste time when I do not attend to the realm. Who knows how long I still have? I could have died in the war and because I survived, I thought myself safe, as people so often foolishly do. Last winter showed me that my days are truly numbered.

Now to the marriage. My decision was twofold, the more important part being that I think Margritte should have the right to the throne, being the oldest of her generation of my house – it seems right to me. The second reason I will keep to myself, but it is the same that has kept me unmarried for this long. In that, nothing has changed and you need not worry that I deprive myself of anything.

I wish you all the best and may the creators be by your side.

 _King Waleran of House Blakewood_  
First of his Name, Eleventh of his Bloodline to Hold the Throne of Andar, Shield and Sword of the Realm

-

To the revered King Waleran of House Blakewood,

I hope you are well. I was sad to hear that Sir Sekhemkare had to leave, as I enjoyed having him at my court. He told me just this morning that he was urgently needed by you and that he was supposed to apologise profusely on your behalf that you could not give me prior notice of this turn of events. As he is the leader of your king’s guard, though, I had suspected he would not stay forever and I look forward to the person you send in his stead so our fruitful alliance can continue.

Your creators do not watch over my lands, but I send you the protection of the Great Ones.

 _Queen Neithotep_  
Chosen of the Waters, Sands, and Sky

-

Waleran,

I’m sorry for forcing your hand. I know you will not prove me a liar to Queen Neithotep. A legate or diplomat will do my work there just as well. We will speak when I’m home.

Sekhemkare

-

~~Sekhemkare, couldn’t you at least have talked to me? Are you travelling all by yourself? Don’t you think the First Blade has enemies, too? I love you, I could not live if you died.~~

~~This is the third time I’ve started this letter. Where would I even send it? You’re on the back of a damned dragon~~

Sekhemare stared at the torn piece of paper that he had picked up from Waleran’s sturdy wooden desk. Though Waleran had crossed out the words with a decisive line of black ink and some of them were written in haste and smeared, they proved the suspicions and hopes he’d had after Waleran’s last letter right.

The door opened with a quiet creak, followed by the sound of Waleran’s uneven step and the tapping of his wooden cane.

Waleran had never reached up to Sekhemkare’s height or matched his pure strength, but he’d had the muscle of a knight and the confidence and loud laugh of a man who was always remembered as taller than he was. Even after the war, he’d still had this aura that made you miss the scars that split his face, the cane, the frail build that was a result of all the complications from the wounds. His voice had commanded crowds and his grin gave hope to them – until last winter.

Waleran looked at Sekhemkare with a frown.

“You should have at least waited for me to send an entourage so you could come back safely, Khem.” He glanced at the paper in his hand. “And you shouldn’t read my scribblings.” The frown deepened. “This is bad. I wish you had not seen it. I am not here to make demands of you, I already did enough of that.”

“What a stupid king,” Sekhemkare said with a scoff, dropping the piece of paper back on the desk. “A _demand_... things were never like that between us. You think I sat by your bedside because I felt like I had to?”

“No, I know you’re a good man. Good people often suffer for their natures.”

Sekhemkare crossed the distance between them, took Waleran’s face in his hands and kissed him. At first Waleran resisted, but he was not strong enough now to pull away and it was only a moment before he eased into him. Sekhemkare tasted him thoroughly.

“Tell me that felt like I had to do it,” he said dryly as he leaned back.

Waleran snorted, hiding a smile by glancing at his feet. “I will not lie,” he muttered.

“I need to know what happened to my friend,” Sekhemkare said. “Something did.”

With a sigh, Waleran took a step back to look up at him.

“My mind has been in a strange place since the winter. I worry death never left my bones. It was different than getting hurt in the war. I could do nothing but languish and hope. I hate how weak I have become.”

“Why didn’t you say something? Why did you send me away?”

“I explained all that to you in the letter.”

Sekhemkare crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“You’re not wrong that at times it was obvious that we were not of the same birth, but I could have left if it had bothered me beyond reason. You were never the sort of man to press me. My tasks got harder when you became king, but I rose in the ranks, too. Besides, it made sense to me. We always belonged together. Have you not noticed I never married, either? My life was already intertwined with yours.” He lifted his chin. “If you’re so concerned about cajoling me with your power, stop playing games with me! Listen to me when I tell you that I don’t want to be sent away. I want to be home with you. I have made my decision.”

Reluctantly, Waleran nodded his head.

“You’re not wrong. You have known me long enough to say that it’s not the first time I’ve acted the fool, but it pains me more this time.”

“You’re forgiven.” Sekhemkare glanced back at his desk. “Have you sent a new legate to the queen yet?”

“Yes, an administrator from Herburg. She is kind and pleasant, hopefully enough to distract from your hasty departure.”

“If you’d wanted to avoid this situation, you should have called me back,” Sekhemkare said with an insolent smile and a shrug.

Waleran laughed. It was a weak sound, but great to hear nonetheless.

“Margritte and Tangerine would be cross with me if I did not bring you to them the moment I knew you were here. Afterwards... maybe we talk, but I fear I cannot even explain what is wrong with me.”

“Then we sit in silence for now, but it will be better than for you to do so alone.” Sekhemkare gripped the cane Waleran had left leaning against the desk while they were kissing and held it to him. “Come, my king.”


End file.
